“Yes, oh.”
“You mentioned a meeting. I assumed we were parting ways at the Faraday and would rendezvous at dawn.” The temptation to fling Meiko under the bus was strong, but I managed to suppress the urge. “I didn’t think you’d want to be stuck with us for hours and hours.”
Neely nodded support in my half of the conversation. “Guys hate that.”
“You’re a guy,” I pointed out. “Shopping is your number-one hobby. Probably two and three too.”
His harrumph killed all support on that front.
“I don’t want to trespass on your time with your friend,” Linus said at last, “but this isn’t Savannah.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” We zipped over asphalt marked with rubber skids and debris from accidents past, and I kept wishing for the bump-bump-bump of cobblestones. “How about we get started and you join us?”
“Let Cletus keep an eye on you.” His sigh blasted over the line. “I’ll be there shortly.”
Given the fact his wraith was on guard duty, he didn’t have to ask where we were going, not that I had a clue. Cletus would tell Linus, or show him. I wasn’t clear on how their bond worked, if they conversed or traded thoughts, sensations, and images between themselves the same as Woolly and me.
Buildings whooshed past in a brick and metal blur. “What about your meeting?”
“I can make time, Grier.”
Home for the first time in months, a meeting on the horizon, and he was prioritizing my vanity.
Being prioritized for a change felt…nice.
“Tell him to meet us at Haywood Square,” Neely prompted me. “They have the best selection.”
The mall was a Society holding, and it kept much later hours than the surrounding shopping centers. And Neely was right. Thanks to its investors, Haywood had the best of everything Atlanta had to offer in order to please its nocturnal clients.
“I heard,” Linus informed me. “I’ll see you soon.”
I sat there after I ended the call, staring at the phone, the blacked-out display and its reflection of me.
“Girls do call boys these days,” Neely suggested. “It’s modern, not desperate.”
I squinted at him. “What makes you think I’m waiting on a call?”
“Please,” he huffed. “I haven’t been off the market that long. I recognize that face. I used to see it in the mirror every time a cute boy forgot my number.”
“Boaz has been busy.” The defense sprang to my lips with ease. “He has a lot on his plate right now.”
“How long has he been busy?” Neely cut his eyes toward me. “You’ve been wearing that expression for weeks.”
“You’ve barely seen me,” I argued. “Maybe you just caught me in a weak moment.”
“You’re a lot of things, Grier, but weak is not one of them.”
Knowing he was thinking of Volkov, of the story I had spun about the vampire being a controlling boyfriend I had escaped with only a few bruises, made me think of him too.
He was out there, somewhere, locked in a cell I was certain lacked the amenities lavished on me. But bars or not, a cage was still a cage.
“Forget I said anything.” Neely made the peace offering, but his eyes remained troubled, and it didn’t escape my attention he hadn’t asked about Amelie. According to our cover story, she was here in the city working an internship. Yet he didn’t offer to include her in our outing. It made me wonder if he was avoiding the topic. Maybe he was hurt to have lost her too. “Tell me what we’re shopping for and how much money I get to spend.”
The budget was a good question. Too much would make him suspicious, but too little wouldn’t get me the polish required to pass among High Society. I might as well get more jeans and tees while I was at it. I could use some underwear with elastic too. All mine had been stretched and washed past the breaking point. One pair I tied on over my right hip with the lacy detail unraveling from the waist.
“This asshat won’t get off my bumper.”
I checked out the mirror and winced from the bright lights. “Maybe they’ll take the next exit.”
“Maybe.” Neely accelerated, nudging us a few miles over the posted speed limit as he took an overpass. “Let’s see how he likes that.” Flicking on his blinker, he changed lanes for good measure. “We’ve got two more exits until our next turn. We’ll just chill over here and— Grier.”
Metal screeched, and the car lurched sideways. I was falling, and then the seat belt yanked me back, its edge cutting into my throat. But we kept tumbling, over and over. Glass crunched and scattered, pelting my face and neck. An explosion whited out the corner of my eye—the airbag deploying—and Neely lost his grip as his head shot back.
Blood scented the air, almost indistinguishable from the hot metal smell permeating each breath.
Dipping my fingers in a gash across my cheek, I swiped a protection sigil on Neely’s arm and then mine.
What damage had already been done was beyond help, but it might save us from breaking our necks.
Impact, harder than all the rest, made the frame surrounding us groan, and the car rocked to a stop.
I must have been screaming. My throat hurt like it did when I woke from the dream. Silence descended, a cocoon that wrapped my senses, the utter quiet only punctuated by Neely’s too-sharp breaths. “Neely?”
A low moan was his only response.
With a grunt of effort, I reached out and mashed my thumb against his pulse. Quick but steady. That was all the energy I could scrounge together while my heart raced so fast my legs felt the burn.
Treading the familiar path to the door in my head, my consciousness locked me away from the pain.
“The Master will kill us for this,” a masculine voice hissed from the shadows.
“The Master wants her,” a woman answered. “Well, there she is.”
The crunch of approaching footsteps shocked me back to my senses, and I forced myself to assess the situation.
Neely and I hung upside down, suspended by our seat belts. The car had flipped so many times the doors were bowed out and the glass had shattered in all the windows. Neely was alive, but hurt. I was alive, but so weak I must be losing blood. Or I had a head injury making me sluggish. With the ringing in my ears, I conceded that maybe it was a little bit of both.
“A salt circle won’t keep out that wraith forever,” the man warned. “We need to leave.”
“We will,” the woman soothed, “as soon as we have our prize.”
The familiar tickle down my spine confirmed my worst fear. These were vampires, come to fetch me. Part of me had hoped I’d hallucinated the first part of their conversation, but there was no denying biology.
Fingers trembling from shock and fear, I wet my fingers against my cheek and started drawing.
Cletus might be out of action, but he was still broadcasting to Linus. Help was on the way if I could just hang on.
“Ah. You’re awake,” the woman crooned. “Fear not, mistress, we’ll have you back where you belong in no time at all.” Recognition kicked in a heartbeat later. The elevator. She was one of the siblings who’d panicked upon hearing my name. “The Master has been beside himself since you left. He forgives all your transgressions. He only wishes you to return home where you will be kept safe and cherished.”
Returned to a gilded cage, that’s what she meant. I would rather die than hear a lock turn at my back.
“Fuck.” I dipped my fingertips in the blood running up my jaw and finished my sigil. “You.”
“That’s not very nice,” she gritted from between clenched teeth. “I am here to serve.”
“Linus is coming.” I spoke with absolute conviction. “Leave now or suffer the consequences.”
“We can’t be here when the potentate arrives,” her brother pleaded. “He’ll kill us.”
“We won’t be if you’d get over here and lend a hand,” she snarled. “Give me your knife.”